GMI Technology Inc. today announced an update on several key market applications in Greater China along with the company’s recent progress in those segments.
According to GMI Technology the Personal Computing segment continues to be the overall leader in terms of sales turnover. Within this segment Netbooks continue to be the fastest growing segment, and while demand has slowed recently, worldwide production will double in 2009 to over 30 million units. The majority of worldwide production will be in mainland China, including international brand OEM’s, local China brands and ODM’s (contract manufacturers). The total number of manufacturers has recently dropped significantly due to intense competition and low margins, however this will have little impact on the total production capacity. G.M.I’s sales turnover in the Netbook market will grow to tens of millions of U.S. dollars in 2009, from almost zero in 2008. The Notebook market is also showing moderate growth in 2009. This segment is losing share at the low end to Netbooks but is winning share from the Desktop PC market. As a result the Desktop PC market in China is declining but the size of the market continues to be very large.
The Digital Multi Media market has two major application segments, handheld devices (MP3/4, PMP. MP5/6) and Digital Media Players (DMP) for TV. The handheld market is very slow based on the worldwide economy but GMI Technology expects overall demand to grow in the 2nd half of 2009. Prices for chipsets have dropped almost 50% year over year. GMI Technology is a leading player in the handheld market, shipping over 1 million chipsets per month to this segment. GMI Technology has also significantly increased their market share of U.S. handheld brands that are manufactured in China. The DMP market in China continues to very strong, primarily for export business. Products with new features will also continue to drive growth. GMI Technology is a strong player in this market and is targeting to ship 200K chipsets per month in the 2nd half of 2009.
A third key application segment in Greater China is LCD Panels and Monitors. The LCD Panel market is growing very fast due to price decreases driving new applications. The Monitor market is very stable, and has very large overall demand. GMI Technology is shipping over 1 million scaler IC’s per month to this combined segment.
Commenting on the announcement, Weylin Wang, president of GMI Technology, said, “We are very excited with the market strength of key applications in China. Overall the consumer and IT markets continue to outperform other worldwide markets. We are also extremely pleased GMI Technology is growing participation in these markets, and we are very optimistic about GMI Technology is future growth in China. We greatly appreciate the outstanding support from our many strategic vendor and customer partners.”